Leading medical journals plan to curb company role in research reports

Next month, 11 of the world's leading medical journals are to publish anew joint editorial policy, under which they will refuse to publish research reports containing company-sponsored data unless the investigators had control of the content and access to all data used in the research.

The policy has been agreed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Participating journals include the Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Annals of Internal Medicine, The Lancet and the national medical society journals of nations including Canada, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand.

Jeffrey Drazen, editor-in-chief of the NEJM, noted that there have been cases of sponsor companies trying to stop the publication of unfavorable trial results, or trying to portray such data in a positive light by limiting the researchers' participation.